DeVillier explains state road options

There are three options to repair state-owned roads in Eunice, State Rep. Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, said at Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Aldermen.
DeVillier spoke at a meeting in which Jack Burson, alderman at-large, gained a approval for a resolution asking the state Department of Transportation and Development, the Eunice state legislative delegation and the governor for repairs.
One option is for the transportation department to add the repairs to its priority list, DeVillier said.
“I understand that this option may be unacceptable to many, so I asked for other options,” DeVillier said. “There is a program called ‘Right-Sizing’ and if the secretary of DOTD, Shawn Wilson, allows, a highway can be put on the list.”
Right-Sizing allows a highway to be given to a city or parish, he said.
“The state also gives up to 40 years of maintenance funds to the city or parish for them to do, as I understand, what they wish, which could amount to $423,000 per mile for a two-lane asphalt road,” DeVillier said.
The third option is for state crews to patch a road as best as they can with available funds, he said.
Burson endorsed Right-Sizing.
“I would readily say the Right-Sizing strikes me as the way we ought to go for the simple reason if we get the funds and put them in a trust like we should we can keep the street once it is properly overlaid,” Burson said.
Burson said his resolution is the 14th delivered to the state in 10 years.
“I”m glad we had Rep. DeVillier tonight and I don’t want any remarks to be mistaken as in any way designed to attack him because he has been in the Legislature for all of five months, three months of which he has been in Baton Rouge,” he said.
Burson said he was happy DeVillier took the initiative to inquire about solutions to Eunice’s state road problems.
“... I distinctly remember at least three previous times when we were told that overlay of that street, maple, one of the main streets through town going to LSUE, going to Eunice High School, to go anywhere in Eunice east to west, we were promised at least three times it would be on the budget for the next year, then when next year came, it was the year after that. It has been that kind of song and dance,” Burson said.
Burson brought up the road resolution at an agenda-setting meeting on June 9 after the right front wheel on his car was jarred.
“I have no axe to grind,” he said. “I don’t think politics should be about left wing or right wing, which is all I hear about these days from Washington on down. It ought to be about taking care of things you have responsibility for. I got to say Jindal’s eight years in office there was less done of that respect than we’ve ever had.”
Burson praised the Govs. Mike Foster and Edwin Edwards for getting things done as business-like and pragmatic.
Along the same political line, Burson called on state Sens. Eric Lafleur and Gerald Boudreaux to get involved in the helping fix Eunice’s state road problem.
“If we don’t do something about Maple we just as soon return it to gravel road status,” he said.
Burson called Maple Avenue from the its intersection with La. 13 west to La. 91 a “disaster.”
Other state highways in Eunice are in need of repairs, including U.S. 190, he said.
DeVillier said another avenue for repairs to roads is to place them in the state’s capital outlay budget.
Aldermen approved a resolution that stated, “ To make immediate and urgently needed repairs to La. Hwy. 91, from its intersection with Hwy. 757 south to La. 13 South and to La. Highway 190 and La. Highway 13 as these highways are in serious need of immediate repairs and all are major thruways for local and surrounding area businesses and residents.”
Other board action included:
— Calling a special meeting at 10 a.m. June 28 on the city’s budget.
— Scheduling a tax sale for 2015 delinquent property tax at 10 a.m. June 24.
— Adopted an ordinance to abandon an alley near Ardoin Marble Works.
— Approve a liquor license for Mohammed Kabir for Fluffy’s, 1802 W. Laurel Ave.
— Commended the First Baptist Church for work at Circle Park.
— Approved hiring George Tain as a provisional police officer.
— Approved Dina Fontenot and Darrell Huckaby as reserve police officers.